permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

Santa Barbara City College Center for Sustainability &
 Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
presents:
~Mycelium Running~
How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
with Paul Stamets

Saturday, February 13, 2010
Fe Bland Auditorium, Santa Barbara City College West Campus
 7-9:30 pm,  Admission $20 (SBCC students$10)

	 P aul Stamets believes growing mushrooms 
may be the best thing we can do to save the 
environment. A dedicated mycologist for more than 
thirty years, Stamets notes that humans, although 
adept at inventing toxins, are equally inept at 
removing them from our environment.  He believes 
mushrooms can save the world.


	 In a rare appearance on the South Coast, 
Paul Stamets will give an evening talk on 
Saturday, February 13, at 7pm, hosted by the SBCC 
Center for Sustainability, at the Fe Bland 
Auditorium, SBCC West Campus. Stamets will share 
how he feels a mycological rescue of the planet 
can occur with the help of fungi.  Mycelium, 
filaments of microscopic cells---of which 
mushrooms are the fruit---recycle carbon, 
nitrogen and other essential elements as they 
break down plant and animal debris.  What Stamets 
has discovered is that the enzymes and acids that 
mycelium produce to decompose this debris, are 
also superb at breaking apart hydrocarbons, the 
base structure common to many pollutants. 
Stamets coined the word ‘myco-restoration’, to 
describe engaging mycelium to heal habitats and 
stabilize ecosystems. He believes that mycelium 
are the neurological network of nature, and that 
without fungi, all ecosystems would fail.

	 M ost think of mushrooms only in terms 
of edibles like Portabellos or Chantrelles, but 
the part fungi plays in the evolution of the 
planet is extraordinary.  Stamets states that 
when the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago and 
coalesced out of stardust, organisms first 
appeared in the ocean.  The very first organisms 
on land were fungi.  Earth's ongoing history 
included asteroid impacts, with loss sometimes of 
90% of plant  and animal life due to debris dust 
blotting out the sun.  But fungi, without the 
need for sunlight, survived, and so did animals 
and plants that formed relationships with them.

	Paul Stamets has been a mushroom 
enthusiast since the late 1970s, and is the 
founder of Fungi Perfecti (www.fungi.com). He has 
discovered four new species of mushrooms, and 
pioneered countless techniques in the field of 
edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. He 
received the 1998 "Bioneers Award" from The 
Collective Heritage Institute, and the 1999 
"Founder of a New Northwest Award" from the 
Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation 
and Development Councils. In 2008, Paul received 
the National Geographic Adventure Magazine's 
Green-Novator and the Argosy Foundation's 
E-chievement Awards. He was also named one of 
Utne Reader's 
"<http://www.utne.com/2008-11-13/50-Visionaries-Who-Are-Changing-Your-World.aspx>50 
Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in their 
November–December 2008 issue. He has written six 
books on mushroom cultivation, use and 
identification, his latest book is Mycelium 
Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. 
He has been a presenter at the prestigious TED 
conference.


The event takes place on Saturday, February 13, 
7-9:30pm at the Fe Bland Forum auditorium, SBCC 
West Campus, 721 Cliff Drive. Admission $20 ($10 
SBCC Students), no reservations, first come 
basis.  The event is sponsored by the SBCC Center 
for Sustainability and the Santa Barbara 
Permaculture Network Non-Profit. For more 
information, (805) 965-0581, ext. 2177; 
msbushman@sbcc.edu.


***TED YouTube: Paul Stamets at TED Conference
  http://www.youtube.com/paulstamets#p/u/3/WuF4s-0-0Gs


ALSO  LOS ANGELES
Sunday February 14th. Mycologist Paul Stamets 
will be our keynote speaker at the LAMS annual 
fair on Details at: www.lamushrooms.org
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
   an educational non-profit since 2000
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
 www.sbpermaculture.org
> From neshura@gmail.com  Fri Feb 12 10:42:55 2010
Return-Path: <neshura@gmail.com>
X-Original-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Received: by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix, from userid 3002)
        id AC95F4C014; Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:42:55 -0500 (EST)
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on malecky
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled
        version=3.2.3
X-Greylist: delayed 339 seconds by postgrey-1.32 at malecky;
        Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:42:54 EST
Received: from mail-yw0-f179.google.com (mail-yw0-f179.google.com
        [209.85.211.179])
        by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 005E74C013
        for <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>;
        Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:42:54 -0500 (EST)
Received: by ywh9 with SMTP id 9so2535742ywh.19
        for <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>;
        Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:42:54 -0800 (PST)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.101.195.38 with SMTP id x38mr2191568anp.135.1265989034775;
        Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:37:14 -0800 (PST)
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:37:14 -0500
Message-ID: <5a1097891002120737y301c34aak9fb096136040c3f6@mail.gmail.com>
From: neshura <neshura@gmail.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Subject: [permaculture] Seedballs in bulk: concept sketch
X-BeenThere: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
Reply-To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Id: permaculture <permaculture.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture>,
        <mailto:permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture>
List-Post: <mailto:permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture>,
        <mailto:permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:42:55 -0000

Hey everyone -- just wanted to throw out a quick idea sketch of how to
hack fireworks hobbyist techniques to produce seedballs in very large
quantities when you don't have access to manual labor (i.e. 25 friends
and family) or a big clay pit

I've seen quite a few citations or suggestions to use a concrete mixer
to make seedballs, but they weren't very specific, more like "It
should work".
It wasn't til I saw someone working with a star roller that I thought,
"Now THERE is a seedball technique with most of the kinks worked
out!". A 15 second clip of a homemade star roller on youtube should
illustrate this enough for anyone to go "AHA!" -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?vNMoutL3ON8

CONCEPT: Adapt a star roller to tumble seed balls instead of fireworks

HARDWARE: 5 gallon bucket and a motor, or access to a friend with a
star roller, or a small concrete mixer with blades removed, along with
the other accoutrements of seedball making (drying screens, etc)

SOFTWARE: Powder clay, fine humus (dry), small seeds, water, and an
organic circular core (Cocoa Puffs, Kix, or other circular cereal)

Best place to see a star roller in action is the fireworks episode of
"Dirty Jobs" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_XXUEDPVBY Pt 3 shows
the rollers in action). A seedball is just the organic version of a
black powder star core. Essentially, you *should* be able to use the
exact same technique. The Cocoa Puffs tumble in the roller, with a
scoop of fine clay. Mist with water until you see the clay start
accreting as a thin layer on the cores. As the balls get larger, add
small seeds, fine humus, and more clay, and continue to mist just
enough to keep the balls growing in size. Finish with a thin coating
of pure clay to protect the seed ball, then spread out to dry on a
screen.

The above isn't directions per se, just a description of the process.
If you really wanted to do this, you would go study up on the
fireworks technique itself and try to use their proportions, mixing
rates, and measurements, which I think is the real value of this
exercise -- seedballs don't need to be precisely measured, but
fireworks do, and so the directions are necessarily extremely
detailed.

As someone who regularly fails on projects where the directions
mostly consist of hand-waving and adjectives like "approximately", I
am a person who appreciates a little extra precision (I would love to
have a library consisting entirely of "...For Dummies" books).

SEED BALL SPECIFIC QUESTIONS
Are the clay and humus powdery enough to accrete evenly?
What's the largest size seed you could use that would still stick reliably?
How long would it take to make 250 1" seedballs with this method? 10,000?
Which is the bigger limiting factor, materials cost, or drying time/space?
Does using Cocoa Puffs (chocolaty tools of corporate overlords)
outweigh the positive intentions of reseeding a vacant lot or
relocalizing an abandoned construction site?

Obviously this technique is a bit biased to help the city guerrilla
gardener who has only a 7th story apartment balcony at their disposal,
but I thought it a very interesting thought experiment! Comments
welcome!